pillock

Horses can eat grass. How do you think they survived before humans started domesticating them?

I think they should leave zombies the same until they can fix them properly. There's no real point in making incremental changes when they're still glitchy and crap after each change - just leave them the same so we can get used to their behaviour, then work on them behind the scenes until they're substantially fixed and implement the changes wholesale. It'd be less annoying that way. It's just a pain in the arse having to re-learn new ways to kill the still-buggy-and-irritating zombies every few weeks, and it doesn't really move the game forward, in my opinion.

As the game stands, there's no real point in maxing out your inventory-slot potential. You can survive very easily with 6 slots in your trousers and 4 in your coat, using civilian clothes alone. You don't need a tac-vest, or even a backpack, really. Side arm, ammo, binoculars, can-opener, rags is all you need to carry. Food and drink can be found abundantly and consumed on the spot. The addition of hunting will require more equipment to be carried, but until they adjust loot balance you won't need to even do that if you're just looking to survive and defend yourself - it's just an amusing side-track. I prefer to move around without visible weapons, because I find it lends itself better to having friendly interactions - and if you don't even have a back-pack, people assume you're unarmed (though if you're very far in land, people get suspicious as to why you haven't found a backpack yet!). So, for me, fewer slots and civilian clothes is functionality.

f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f

You will be able to be in time.

Maybe because it's a shit idea?

No wonder development progress is so slow: Dean spends all day trying to farm subsidies for transporting mail from Fardington to Frenninghall-on-sea.

Well, I think it should be kept fairly intuitive, so you don't have to learn lots of abstract combinations of items/processes for performing what is actually a fairly simple task - keep bashing something until it breaks! Padlocks and chains, as well as barricading material, could come in a variety of types and strengths, with the tougher ones being rarer. Different tools/melee weapons could also have characteristics that make them better at performing certain tasks. I think it also needs to combined with other game-mechanics, such as the health status and physics, so that you expend energy more realistically and can move larger objects around. In terms of health, your "food" and "energy" level should be separated. Eating could still give a boost to your energy, but only up to a point - so that overfilling yourself actually reduces your energy. All physical activity, from walking, running and fighting through to lifting weighty items, cutting wood, erecting barricades, crafting, and knocking stuff down with a sledgehammer, would expend varying amounts of energy - and once you're knackered, you become feeble until you're sufficiently rested. That way, attacking a barricaded or locked structure would be time- and energy consuming. This not only gives more value to team-work, but it allows a variety of ways to get creative with barricading. You could use a vehicle to drag/push a heavy object (like another vehicle or a large rock or tree-trunk) in front of a doorway, so nobody else can open it unless they can shift the obstruction. Alternatively, you could barricade and booby-trap a series of lock-up garages with explosives, only hiding your loot in one of them - someone wanting to gain access would have to spend time and effort getting in, only to be blown up when they eventually succeed, thereby discouraging others from making the same attempt. I don't think this sort of thing requires much gamey abstraction: it does, however, require game mechanics that are complex enough to handle intuitive decision-making.

The only thing I really don't want is impenetrable combination locks. Padlocks and chains, which can be broken open using a crowbar or axe are fine, but nothing impenetrable - and that includes barricades. I want to be able to smash my way into someone's place, but I also think we ought to be able to set booby-traps to 'discourage' this sort of behaviour. I dislike the idea of loot or territory being "owned" by any particular character or group. You can barricade a structure, but it shouldn't be "yours" - it should just be a barricaded structure. Ownership could come from having the correct key for a padlock, or from knowing how to enter the structure without setting off the booby-trap.

Didn't Dean say (at Rezzed?) that they were aiming to make everything persistent? So, you drop a gun or an ammo box or medkits or food or whatever in some random bush, and it stays there until someone else stumbles across it, or it degrades to nothing? No need for tents as a storage unit - unless they give a bonus to stored items within against degredation?

Nothing wrong with a bit of healthy debate, though, eh? I hope the devs are having similar arguments to us, because there is going to be a conflict between maintaining a semi-immersive perma-death scenario, and having people/groups hoard all the best items for insta-replen.

Yeah, but the game as it stands now doesn't have persistent storage, either, so it's not a issue yet. Post-death loot recovery is bound to take place in the alpha stage of development, while we test how it works, but I really think the issue needs to be addressed somehow or other along the line. To be frank, I'd rather have 0 persistent storage than allow players to run back to camp every time they died, once the game is finished and balanced.

Yeah, I understand that. Maybe if server owners were exempted from lockouts (on their own server only)? Or would than be a step too far towards pay-to-win? Basically, persistent loot storage is incompatible with any attempt at immersive perma-death. Unless, that is, you massively shift the balance away from acquisition of loot items as the important factor in progressing your character, and put much more focus on the health/physical fitness/acquired skills of the character instead.

I would support locking players out of a server they've just died in for a limited time - say, 2+ hours. That way, you would need to respawn in a different server if you wanted to continue playing in that session. In the new server, you wouldn't know the whereabouts of specific loot, nor of current players/firefights, so it would be more like starting your life again than if you could re-spawn in the same server. If you get knocked out of a gunfight, you should not be able to rejoin it as a "new life" a few minutes later, in my opinion. If you're playing with a group, they could join the new server you're in to help you regear, but you would only be able to leave persistent loot in one server. If, after the lock-out, your camp/stash is still where you left it, then good luck for you - if not, tough shit. Perhaps your group would guard it for you until you got back, but it would be substantially longer (and more annoying/boring for them) than it is now or than it would be after the introduction of vehicles. It's not a perfect solution, but it's the best I can think off of the top of my head. It would be slightly irritating if you owned a server to be locked out of it, but it would only be for a limited time - to prevent you from immediately regearing - and you could return to it later.

Next time, tell him he's the one who has to come out of cover first, if he wants to meet up. You saved his neck - he owes you the tactical high-ground, not the other way around.

Kill zombie with fists: 1) switch to 1st person view - this enables you to actually aim your punches properly. 2) find a zombie and run circles around it until you are familiar with its movement patterns (if you keep moving and don't stand still in front of it, it won't hit you ever). 3) when you're confident enough to try an attack, wait until it has lunged at you (and missed) and then move up behind it and punch it IN THE HEAD as many times as you can before it turns around - move away if it turns to face you. 4) it really doesn't take many head-punches to knock a zombie down - continue punching its HEAD ONLY as it is standing up - it will usually go down again before it has the chance to get a hit in of its own. 5) repeat the process until the zombie stops getting up again! (this usually only takes 2-3 knock-downs.) Remember: run to the side if it starts to lunge - DO NOT MOVE BACKWARDS, because it will still hit you at a 10 meters distance if you are in front of the strike. Always err on the side of caution, and avoid the zombie's strikes rather than go for risky punches of your own.

To repeat: players should make more noise generally. I agree that an arbitrary log-in noise is a somewhat cumbersome and problematic way to solve the issue of magically-appearing commandos in the upstairs of a building you've just cleared, but it is better than nothing. What I would really like to see is a massive increase in the general noise-level our characters create as we move around normally. If/when we are able to grapple a rope on to an upstairs window ledge, scale the wall and climb inside to outflank someone who's guarding the doorway, then that process of grappling, climbing and entering should be damn near impossible to do silently. The guy is going to hear you as you jump through the window, etc. At the moment, you can sprint full-pelt up behind someone, and they don't hear you until you're nearly on top of them - this is what needs to change in the longer term. You shouldn't make a noise on log-in just because, but you should start making noise as soon as you start moving around or interacting with anything, unless you're being deliberately stealthy and slow.

I've done this in Berezino. The most I managed to maintain in my troupe was 8, I think. I was surprised at how difficult it is to keep them interested - you have to work pretty hard to prevent the slower ones from just dropping out of the gang and getting left behind. I like to gather them at the T-34 statue and run tight circles around them, and figure-8ing amongst the group - sometimes you can get them to start hitting each other, which is an amusing spectacle. Once you do this, though, you realise just how easy it is to carry on about your normal business of looting and exploring, even with the mob on your tail. As long as you keep running and zigzagging they very rarely get a strike in.

I'm hoping for more prominence to be given to the condition of your feet. Any tramp will tell you that a sturdy, comfortable pair of shoes/boots is probably the most important thing you can have - after access to food and water. If you spend a lot of time on your feet, you get blisters, and if your shoes are unsuitable or worn out, it exacerbates the problem. This makes walking and running actually painful, and nearly impossible after a while. Additionally, if your don't keep your feet dry, they start to rot. Light-weight running/athletic shoes should be the best option if they're pristine and you're on dry, even terrain, but they should wear out quickly and cause slips and falls on wet/rough ground. Conversely, big stomping boots would last longer and keep water out better, but not allow you to run as freely or quickly.

I haven't played for about a month, due to staying in temporary accommodation with a shit internet connection, but when I last did I never used to carry food or water ever. It was a waste of inventory space, given that you're never far from a town with a water pump, and canned food was everywhere. But yeah, we're not testing loot balance yet, I don't think, so it doesn't matter.

In my experience of night walking in rural Britain, you're best off sticking to roads. Crossing fields is pretty hazardous, even if you're being careful: once your eyes adjust, you can just about make out sillouttes of tree-lines, or maybe the horizon if the cloud-cover isn't too thick, but you cannot see where you're putting your feet - and this is the main problem. You step in cowshit, and you stumble on uneven ground or protruding rocks and tree roots. If you run, as most people do in DayZ, you're going to go arse-over-tit pretty quickly and probably do yourself a minor injury while you're at it. Forget about going into a forest - you cannot see a god damn thing. You walk into trees, you trip over stuff, you get whacked in the face by low-hanging branches - and this is when you're taking extra slow, small, careful steps and you're waving your arms in front of you like some demented sleep-walker. I once walked straight into a small pond. Another time, I was crossing a field that, unknown to me, had a horse in it. I must have spooked it and it started running all over place. I had NO fucking idea where it was - all I could hear was the pounding of hooves all around me. Scared the living SHIT out of me. Unlit buildings are also pitch black inside at night. As far as DayZ's scenario is concerned, doing anything at night without some sort of light source would be stupid, in my opinion. You'd never find anything useful, moving around would take ages, you'd get attacked by zombies you couldn't see, you'd probably hurt yourself by tripping over or encountering sharp objects, and you'd also risk losing some of your kit if you examined your inventory. If this sort of stuff could be implemented, it would make night time fantastically tense and potentially a lot of fun in terms of the horror factor. I have high hopes.

I'm fairly sure that vultures don't live in the general part of the world where DayZ is set.. but crows, yes. By the way, are we going to be able to shoot birds once hunting/cooking is in the game?

Our characters need to make more noise, generally. It should be very difficult to move around silently or near-silently. If someone's running down a street, you can hear them a hundred yards off; if someone's running through the woods, you can hear the sound of cracking branches underfoot; if someone's walking around on the floor above you, the floorboards creek; etc! Perhaps taking your shoes off would allow you to pad around quietly indoors, but then give a big disadvantage if you suddenly have to rush outside, as it would hurt your feet and force a slower running speed? Hopefully, in time, things like this can be implimeted; in the mean time, each time you log on your character should let out a loud blast of flatulence.

No? Yes! I demand an explanation.

To stop people re-gearing off their own corpse, I think you should get kicked off the server you died on, and locked out for an hour. That way, you are forced to start again properly without prior knowledge of where has/hasn't been looted, and where other players are concentrated. If you get eliminated from a gunfight, you shouldn't be able to rejoin it with a "new" life. If you're playing in a group, they'd all have to hop to your new server, or play on without you. Tough luck for being dead, I say. So, in that way, I don't see changing the spawn points as a method of combatting this type of meta-gaming. I would like to see them spread out more, but I would prefer it if you always start on the coast. For one thing, it gives new players a reference to navigate by - spawning far inland could be horribly disorientating if you didn't know the map well already (debatable if that's a bad thing, I know, but I think it works well as is). Ideally, I think spawn points would be randomly generated on any part of the coast - but at this stage of the alpha, with only 30-40 maximum players on a server in Stable, it probably does make sense to concentrate them a bit - as long they get moved around periodically so we get some variety.